ANNUAL
lincoln dinner of the
Republican club of the
city of new york
FE BRUARY TWEiFrH, R1NFFEEN FOURTEEN
Jw MO
PROCEEDINGS AT THE TWENTY-
EIGHTH ANNUAL LINCOLN
DINNER OF THE REPUBLICAN CLUB
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK.
IN COMMEMORATION OF THE BIRTH OF
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. WALDORF-ASTORIA,
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY TWELFTH
NINETEEN HUNDRED AND FOURTEEN.
MEMBERS AND GUESTS
42&448ohdSt
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
EMANCIPATOR
MARTYR
BORN FEBRUARY 12. 1809
ADMITTED TO THE BAR 1837
ELECTED TO CONGRESS 1846
ELECTED SIXTEENTH PRESIDENT OF
THE UNITED STATES. NOVEMBER. 1860
EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION
JANUARY 1. 1863
RE-ELECTED PRESIDENT OF THE
UNITED STATES. NOVEMBER, 1864
ASSASSINATED APRIL 14, 1865
Officers of the Club
President
JAMES R. SHEFFIELD
Vice-Presidents
First— JOSEPH H. EMERY
Second— ROBERT W. BONYNGE
Third— CHARLES O. MAAS
Corresponding Secretary
LOUIS H. ROWE
Recording Secretary
HENRY W. GODDARD
Treasurer
JAMES L. WANDLING
Lincoln Dinner Committee
CHAS. O. MAAS
Chairman
GEORGE C. AUSTIN
Vice-Chairman
J. EDGAR LEAYCRAFT
Treasurer
HENRY BIRRELL
Secretary
William S. Bennet
Chailes L. Bernheimer
Herman W. Beyer
Philip Bloch
Robert W. Bonynge
John Boyle, Jr.
William M. Calder
Lauren Carroll
Morris Cooper
Edward F. Cragin
Francis C. Dale
John A. Dutton
Edward R. Finch
John J. Fleming
Paul G. Fourman
Theodore P. Gilman
Jacob Halstead
Joseph L. Hollander
George W. Kavanaugh
Walter E. Kelley
Joseph Levenson
Luther B. Little
Taylor More
George W. Morgan
Robert C. Morris
Louis Runkel
R. A. C. Smith
Lloyd Paul Stryker
J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT, tx-officio
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t
Speakers
Honorable J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT
President of the Club, presiding
Qrace
The Reverend WILLIAM CARTER. D.D.
'Uoast
The President of the United States
j4ddresses:
Honorable EDWARD C. STOKES
Honorable NATHAN GOFF
Honorable WILLIAM E. BORAH
ADDRESS OF
Hon. J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT
President of the Club
The Toastmaster: Reverend Dr. Carter will say
grace.
The Reverend William Carter, D.D : Oh, Lord, our
God, our hearts are full of thanksgiving to-night, not
only for these material blessings which Thou art giving
unto us, but also for the great spiritual blessing and
spiritual force whose memory we are here to observe.
We ask that Thou wilt give Thy blessing, not only upon
the food of which we partake, but that Thou wilt give
Thy blessing unto this occasion ; that Thou wilt raise our
hearts and our lives to higher levels, as we consider the
high levels unto which that great soul reached in the
crisis of this great nation. We thank Thee, Lord, for
that light, for that character. We thank Thee for the
blessings we enjoy now because he lived, because he
died for the nation that he loved. We ask that Thou wilt
receive our thanks, not only for this of which we are
about to partake, but also for the gift of that great heart,
that great soul whose memory we honor and revere to-
night. And all we ask is for Thy name's sake. Amen.
The Toastmaster: Gentlemen, the Republican Club
thanks you for this demonstration. (Applause.) I ap-
preciate perfectly it is given to me as the chief executive
officer of the club.
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Our first duty and our equal pleasure is to drink to the
health of the President of the United States, and I ask
you to rise and do so.
(Toast to President of the United States.)
The Toastmaster : Ladies and gentlemen: This is
the twenty-eighth Lincoln Dinner of the Republican
Club. The Republican Club is in existence to prove posi-
tively that the Republican party exists as a fighting
force. (Applause.) The party is at times depressed
because it meets defeat, but the party has always insisted
that should not be permanent. The Republican party
has a long line of principles which have been enunciated
in its several platforms, and has fulfilled the declarations
of its conventions assembled, as enunciated from time to
time since 1856 in those platforms. They have not shilly-
shallied. They have always been positive. Just at pres-
ent there is some defection in the ranks of the Republican
party, but the Republican party, as an existent entity,
has declined foolishly to flirt with people who would seek
to destroy its original principles. (Applause.) We will
welcome back to the fold former members who have been
errant, but for the sake of getting the most illustrious of
them back we will not yield one tithe of the principle of
our fathers. (Applause.)
All of us feel disgusted when a useless person brags
of his ancestors, if he is not doing something to make the
world better himself, but none of us is so indifferent to
our forbears that we would think for one moment of not
having pride in the great works that have been done by our
predecessors. Therefore, when we come on the twenty-
eighth dinner to celebrate Lincoln's birth, we are stating
to the entire community that we are following the prin-
ciples of Abraham Lincoln, because we are seeking to do
something, as he did, for the benefit of mankind. (Ap-
plause.) We are proud of him. We are proud of his
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Address of Hon. J. Van Vechten Olcott
successors. We are proud of all the Republican Presi-
dents that have followed him, because they were treading
in his steps. We are taking things as they come, as he
did. Just at this moment I want to read a letter that
comes from Robert T. Lincoln. Most of you gentlemen
know that on every possible occasion, when we have had
a Lincoln dinner, we have striven to obtain the presence
of the son of his illustrious father. He has always de-
clined from principles perhaps of over-wrought modesty,
but at any rate he has always felt that it would be
scarcely possible for him to be present, when a man with
whom he had the personal relations of son to father was
being glorified. This is his last letter, written to Mr.
Henry Birrell, the Secretary of the Lincoln Dinner Com-
mittee. It is a good thing for us to read this at this
present time.
"My Dear Sir :
"I express again my deep appreciation of the many
times repeated invitation of The Republican Club to at-
tend its annual dinner, in commemoration of my father's
birthday. For the reasons which I have so often given, I
must refrain from accepting it and expressing in person
the gratitude I feel to all of the members for using this
particular occasion to indicate their loyalty to our Repub-
lican institutions, whose preservations were the great
object of my father's life."
Gentlemen, the Republican Club never apologizes be-
cause we are Republicans. We are coming back; of
course we are coming back. Possibly some of you read
even the returns of the State of Iowa when they had an
incidental election for member of Congress. In a district
that used to be represented by a Republican, Mr. Daw-
son, and when, by reason of this wild vagary that seemed
to spread over the land, a new so-called party had arisen,
which knew perfectly well it could only defeat the Re-
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publican party by electing a Democrat, it made that
particular district Democratic, and yet the returns came
in yesterday morning, gratifying to all of us who were
just watching the trend of time. We find that in a dis-
trict which only last year gave 12,000 for Roosevelt and
6,000 for Taft now gives and elects a Democrat by only
1,900 votes, in a three-cornered fight, and the vote of
the Progressive party falls from 10,000 to 3,000. (Ap-
plause.) A gentleman a little while ago told me a story.
It was something that he said, and he is distinctly a mod-
est man, although he is an organization politician, and
the story went about like this : He spoke to someone and
he said: "Why are you in favor of the Progressive
party?" He said. "Because I blindly follow Roosevelt";
and the gentleman's answer was, "That is the only way
you could follow him." (Applause.) Gentlemen, please
think of that. It sounds flippant for one to tell when we
are talking seriously in regard to Republican affairs ; but
will you not every one of you go away from this meeting
(I know you will after you have heard these men) — will
you not go away from this meeting, realizing that though
perhaps the Republican party has made mistakes, their
principles are as sound as any rock upon which a build-
ing may be built. ( Applause. )
I have not even said welcome to such of you as are our
guests. I would rather say to the guests who are here to
congratulate themselves that they are here in a real Re-
publican assembly. That you are here as members for
the night of a Republican Club that is not afraid to de-
clare its doctrines. (Applause.) That you are here be-
cause the Republican party still lives (applause), and
renews its expressions of belief in conservatism in gov-
ernment in a representative government. We will renew
our adherence to the doctrines of our fathers and the
principles of our party.
I apologize for having talked so much. It is now my
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Address of Hon. J. Van Vechten Olcott
duty to act as Toastmaster. The gentleman who will
speak upon Lincoln is known to many of you, known by
name and reputation to all of you, a gentleman who has
been Governor of the great State of New Jersey. A gen-
tleman who last year should have been elected. I intro-
duce to you now with the greatest pleasure, the Honor-
able Edward C. Stokes, formerly Governor of the State
of New Jersey. He will speak to us of Abraham Lincoln.
[13]
ADDRESS OF
Hon. EDWARD C. STOKES
Mr. Stokes : Mr. Toastmaster, ladies and gentlemen :
Rising as I do on this occasion with a timidity and mod-
esty that always characterizes a Jersey man (laughter),
your cordial welcome is all the more appreciated. I real-
ize the hazard of one who lives in the solitude of my state
(laughter) attempting to ask for the metropolitan ear
and to challenge the metropolitan taste. As I survey
these galleries with my bachelor eyes (laughter) my mis-
fortune, not my fault (laughter and applause), I am
compelled to confess that New York republicanism is
somewhat in advance of New Jersey methods in proselyt-
ing for the future. (Laughter.) I did not know, until
I looked over the scene to-night, that there were so
many Republicans in this section. Had I had that infor-
mation last fall, you would have heard a Macedonian cry
from New Jersey (laughter) to come over and help us,
for, my friends, despite the prayers of your Chaplain,
Dr. Carter, and the eloquence of Senator Borah, there
was a deficit over there when the votes were counted last
fall (laughter and applause), but perhaps that is a selfish
view to take of the situation, for as I understand it, you,
on that occasion, were engaged in the more patriotic and
laudable work of fusing with your opponents, in order to
enable them to clean house. (Applause.)
I approach this subject with no little misgiving. I
have been most royally entertained here to-night. I
have been introduced to eight of my predecessors who
were assigned the same toast that has been assigned to
me, and at their presentation I was greeted with the
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remark that "this gentleman delivered the finest speech
ever heard in this hall on that subject" (laughter), and
then I wished that I had stayed home.
I congratulate you, Mr. Toastmaster and members of
this club, upon being, as I understand it, the first organi-
zation to annually preserve in fitting ceremony the mem-
ory of the greatest of Americans and a Republican who,
even our so-called Progressive friends cannot criticise.
( Applause. ) I say "so-called Progressive." I do not admit
that that term belongs exclusively to them, because the
Republican party has been the progressive party of this
nation since the days of John C. Fremont. (Applause.)
Ages have their different customs. This world is what
it is to-day because of those who have gone before, and
this man came into the world under conditions different
from those of to-day. There was not an electric light, or
a telegraph, or a telephone, or railroad. He was born
out in the wilds of the Kentucky woods, in a cabin with-
out a window or a door or a floor. He was without a
cradle. He had no godfather but poverty, and no inheri-
tance but hardship. Though men knew it not, that lowly
born babe was to be the Moses of the new world and they
called him Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) He was
country bred, as many great Americans were. He was a
child of the woods. He drank in their sweetness and
their fragrance, their patience and their purity, their
silence and their melancholy, and from them he gathered
courage and endurance and self-reliance. He walked the
pathway of trial from boyhood to manhood. He lost
mother and sister in his early years. We pass laws
to-day forbidding boys and girls from working until 16
or 1 8 years of age, until we are growing up a race of hot-
house darlings, without the habits of industry. (Ap-
plause.) This man worked on a boat at the age of eight.
He lived for a year in a three-faced cottage, one side
exposed to the weather and the storm. He knew the
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
hardships of the pioneer's winter. He was glad at times
to earn ten dollars a month, and he never complained of
the high cost of living. (Laughter.) He never had a
year's schooling in all his life, and in his day school con-
sisted of the rudest cabin, with teachers who boarded
out. One of the early educators of that day said he
boarded in a house consisting of a single room, 15 feet
square, inhabited by a man and his wife, ten children,
three dogs and two cats. (Laughter.) Aside from this,
his schooling consisted of his moments of respite from
work and his hours by the light of that famous pine knot
by night, with a shingle for a blackboard, a jack knife
for an eraser and a piece of charcoal for a pencil, and
yet this man, without any early educational advantages,
became the master of the English tongue. Emerson him-
self, a child of culture, ranks him with Aesop and the
great French literateur, Montalembert, commends his
style as a model for princes to copy, and the common
people rank him easily first by adopting many of his
phrases into the current speech of mankind. Upon a
wall of Brosenose College at Oxford, England, there
hangs a letter which he penned to a bereaved mother,
who had given five of her sons to the service of the Re-
public, as a specimen of the finest English ever written.
There it hangs in the place of honor, above the trained
scholarship of the ages. Why, Oxford is six centuries
old. It has been the centre of literary movement. From
it have gone forth generations of learned men, philoso-
phers and poets and theologians and historians ; William
Pitt, the friend of America; Fox, the great English
writer; Johnson, the lexicographer; Burke, the prose
poet; and yet this old university, with its six centuries
of piled up learning, stretches its hand across the Atlantic
and places the laurel crown upon the brow of this un-
educated child of the west as a master of the finest En-
glish ever penned. (Applause.) Upon an old eastern
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wall is this picture: A king is making of his crown a
chain, and by his side a slave is making of his chain a
crown. Underneath is this inscription: "Our lives are
what we make them, no matter of what they are made."
So Abraham Lincoln illustrates the possibility of Amer-
ican opportunity and shows what can be accomplished by
every boy of honest poverty and ambition, and he stands
as a splendid refutation of the cry of the Socialist that
things are unevenly divided, because it was the hardship
and poverty and discipline which were the advantages
that made him finally the great chieftain of the land.
Lincoln's life, with its meagre schooling, is none the
less a plea for education. He strove hard to overcome
the disadvantages of early youth. He walked forty-four
miles to get a copy of Blackstone, and he read one hun-
dred pages of it as he walked back. He was a man of
few books. You know the list: Pilgrim's Progress,
Robinson Crusoe, Aesop's Fables, History of the United
States, Life of Washington, the Bible, and later Shakes-
peare. These constituted his accessible library, but he
knew those books thoroughly and, knowing a few books
thoroughly, he was better equipped than his competitors
who knew many books superficially. (Applause.) Lin-
coln illustrates the power of concentration which enables
a man to hit the bull's-eye and which comes from a thor-
ough mastery of the subject, and he stands in marked
contrast to some of that superficial education to-day,
which spreads itself over many fields and covers topics
too numerous for the grasp of thought and leaves the
student with a bird's eye of everything and an accurate
view of nothing. (Applause.)
The superintendent of compulsory education at Chi-
cago has in his possession a thousand volumes, taken
from juvenile offenders, which tell an appalling story of
the kind of literature upon which these unfortunates feed
and the sources whence they derive their first knowledge
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
of wrongdoing and crime. One of the greatest evils of
this land is the habit of light and superficial reading.
Most of us to-day simply read the headlines and draw
our conclusions, without ever reading the news articles.
As a rule, these are inaccurate enough. Loose and super-
ficial reading degenerates the mind, unfits it for close
reasoning and leads it to hasty conclusions. I do not
know whether I am a reformer or not. My friends think
I am. My opponents say the contrary, but if I had the
power to be an efficient reformer, I would strike out from
the newspapers and magazines and the publications of
this land, all reference to crime and wrongdoing, and
bigamy and divorce and other social ills. (Applause.)
The strongest characteristic of the human mind is
imitation. It is so much easier to copy than to be original.
If you will put before the youth of this land a good pic-
ture, the reaction will be good. If you put before the
youth an evil picture, the reaction will be evil, and, my
friends, the evils of this land are advertised out of all
proportion to their frequence. (Applause.) Why, if
some man or woman goes wrong, and I speak with im-
partiality on this subject as a bachelor (laughter), their
pictures occupy the front page of the newspaper, but you
never hear a word about the thousands and thousands
and thousands, aye, millions of men and women, God-
fearing, who live happy married lives in their American
homes. (Applause.) The business men of this country
are honest, the vast majority, yet, my friends, because
now and then one goes wrong, we have been passing laws
and we are continuing to pass laws that treat the busi-
ness men as though they were not safe to be trusted with
the aflairs of this nation. (Applause.)
You know, I sometimes wish — I am not in office now,
I am just a has-been — I sometimes wish that the Ameri-
can business man could be treated with the same consid-
eration which we show to the Mexicans. (Applause.)
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The Republican Club
That is, I mean I wish the American business man could
be left alone to settle his own affairs, just as we are
letting the Mexicans alone to settle their affairs. (Pro-
longer laughter and applause.) Well, that is just thrown
in on the side, with apologies to Senator Borah. I sup-
pose you have read Hawthorne's story of the Great Stone
Face. It illustrates the influence of an ideal upon the
life of a boy. Every morning as that boy goes out from
his little cottage he sees this great stone image, that
typifies to him all that is great and good in human char-
acter, and seeing it often, he grows to like it, and growing
to like it he becomes like it. Such is always the influence
of companionship with the great and the good. Abraham
Lincoln's mind was never tainted with excursions into
the light and the forbidden. He was not one of those
miserable philosophers who claim that in order to avoid
evil you must know something about it. The books he
read were moral, intellectual, uplifting, and upon these
as a foundation was reared a character fit for a martyr's
crown. ( Applause. )
It is a little difficult to tell when the American type of
man first appeared in this country. You know we are a
cosmopolitan people. We are composed of all races. We
are French and Italian, and German and English, and
Russian and Hungarian, and Irish officially. (Laugh-
ter.) The men who signed the Declaration and who
wrote the Constitution, and the officers who led the
armies of the Revolution were, for the most part, English
gentlemen. Washington was an English country squire.
Hamilton was noted for his aristocratic dignity and
bearing, and even old Ben Franklin, that old commoner,
who lived in that slow city of Philadelphia in his woolen
hose, was the idol of the fine ladies and great nobles of
the courts, as though he had been born a marquis. Brave
men as they were, our forefathers were men of powdered
wigs and ruffled shirts — they are coming back in style
[20]
Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
(laughter) — and of knee breeches and shoe buckles.
They would have graced the halls of St. James or Ver-
sailles. They never knew the democracy of this land,
as we understand it. Indeed, that democracy had not
yet appeared. Events were rapidly culminating in a
typical Americanism. The Revolution had died out. The
problems of that war had been solved, and the principles
of American life were coming to the test. As Abraham
Lincoln put it, there were always two principles that had
been in conflict and always will be. One is the divine
right of kings and the other the common right of human-
ity, and it is the same principles, no matter what form it
takes. It is the principle which says you labor and toil
and earn bread and I will eat it. Puritan and Cavalier
founded here a system that opened a new land for the
freedom of human conscience. When England tried to
subdue them, they conquered, and the republic was born,
but they left shackles upon the limbs of men. Our fore-
fathers never intended that slavery should be permanent.
Lincoln conclusively proved that in his famous Cooper
Union speech. Franklin said all the prayers sent to
Heaven by the Virginians were mere blasphemy while
slavery lived. Jay said that all prayers sent to Heaven in
the name of liberty were in vain, so long as slavery con-
tinued. Jefferson drew the line where the black wave of
slavery should be stayed. Mason mourned the penalty
which his descendants must pay for the sins of their
father, but slavery grew and multiplied continuously, and
all the compromises of Clay and Webster — as compro-
mises always do — only served to intensify the contro-
versy. The hour of culmination was near at hand. The
repeal of the Missouri compromise, the passage of the
fugitive slave law, the Kansas-Nebraska struggle, the
Lincoln-Douglas debate, and John Brown's raids fol-
lowed each other in rapid succession. They were the
pre-natal struggles of true Americanism. Abraham Lin-
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coin's training had been all American. He said in Inde-
pendence Hall, Philadelphia, "I never had a sentiment
political that did not spring from the Declaration that
guarantees freedom, not only to this land, but to all man-
kind, and if this country cannot be saved without surren-
dering that principle, I would rather be assassinated on
the spot than sacrifice it." In 1858 came the Lincoln-
Douglas debates. Douglas was one of the leading men
of the country; the expected candidate of his party for
President, as he afterward was, and Lincoln's selection
to cope with this little giant of the West marked him as a
rising man. When those debates were finished, Lin-
coln's fame was national, and he was everywhere her-
alded as the champion of the new Americanism. In reply
to Judge Douglas' charge that he was advocating social
equality between white man and black man, he said : "I
know of no reason why the black man is not entitled to
all of the rights in the Declaration : life, liberty and pur-
suit of happiness." He may not be Judge Douglas' equal
in many respects, perhaps not in mental and moral en-
dowment, but in the right to eat the bread which his own
hand earns, without asking anyone's leave, he is my
equal, Judge Douglas' equal and the equal of any living
man. "When," said Lincoln, "a man governs himself,
that is self-government, but when he governs another
man without that man's consent, that is despotism."
Trite remark, you say. Ah, yes ; but it required courage
to say it in those days, because those were the days in
which Garrison was dragged through the streets of cul-
tured Boston, with a rope around his body, by an angry
mob, because of his abolition sentiments. Those were
the days when, in Lincoln's own State, Lovejoy was
killed while defending his printing press against rioters,
because he had issued anti-slavery documents. Into the
throes of this controversy, into this atmosphere, tense
and vibrant with the silence that portended the coming
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
storm, Lincoln threw that prophet-like declaration which
brought this nation face to face against itself : "A house
divided against itself cannot stand. I do not believe that
this Union can exist half slave and half free. I do not
expect to see the Union dissolved. I do not expect to see
the house fall, but I expect it will cease to be divided."
The battle was on. This first great American, as Lowell
called him, had raised a banner which was finally to
triumph at Appomattox.
Lincoln's whole heart was bound up in the preserva-
tion of the Union. That had been the theme of his early
speeches and the hope of his administration. To him the
Union was the paramount issue, and although many
well-meaning anti-slavery advocates condemned him be-
cause he refused to make slavery the paramount issue of
the war, Lincoln steadfastly and courageously refused to
be diverted from his purpose. Lincoln was not a personal
President. He was a constitutional President, and he
stood by the Constitution, though it protected slavery,
with a hostile army in front, and doubting and timid
friends in the rear. Lincoln had all kinds of advice.
Most public men do. It is one of the remarkable things
about the American people that they will spend their tem-
pers and energies and their money, before the Corrupt
Practice Act was passed, in electing the only man fit to
be elected to a particular position, and as soon as he is
elected, they commence to tell him how to manage affairs.
A delegation from the Evangelical Churches of Chicago
visited Lincoln, to urge him to issue forthwith the procla-
mation of universal emancipation. Lincoln understood
public sentiment better than they, and he knew the time
was not yet ripe for that step, and yet the delegation was
of such a character he could not deny it, although he
could not accede to its request, and his answer shows the
diplomatic skill of the man and his ability to handle men
and situations. He said, "I am approached with entirely
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The Republican Club
opposite views, by religious men, both of whom claim to
represent the divine will. Either one or the other must
be mistaken ; perhaps in some respects both. I trust you
will not regard it irrelevant if I suggest that if God is
revealing His will to others upon a matter so intimately
connected with my duty, it is not improbable that He
would say something to me about it" (laughter) ; and the
delegation withdrew, silent, if not satisfied.
He wrote to Horace Greeley, who, with an editor's
right, was then trying to run the affairs of government.
"My paramount object is to save the Union and not to
save or destroy slavery. If I can save the Union by
freeing none of the slaves, I will do that. If I can save
the Union by freeing all of the slaves, I will do that. If
I save the Union by freeing some of the slaves and
leaving others alone, I will do that." Lincoln relied upon
the intense love for the Union. He knew that the
speeches of Webster and Clay, and thousands of others,
had made the Union sacred. He knew that for the Union
millions had knelt at the altars of slavery, and he believed
that for the Union millions would kneel at the altars of
liberty. After trying every expedient and failing in all,
he knew that either slavery or the republic must die, and
so upon the ist of January, 1863, he took his pen and
wrote the word "Liberty" across the banners of his
army. And just as the heart of Constantine was uplifted
of old by the sign of the Cross in the sky, so from this
moment the soldiers of Lincoln stepped with firmer and
holier tread. That one act accomplished more for man-
kind than ever was permitted mortal man to do. It
changed the whole aspect of the war. It brought to the
North the friendship of the humanitarians of the earth.
The old world might want to see the republic dissolved,
but they could not stand openly for slavery. It not only
freed four million slaves and other millions yet unborn,
but it did more. Tt made a soldier of the black man. and
[24]
Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
be it said to his credit, 120,000 of them shouldered their
muskets and marched to consummate emancipation for
all mankind.
Lincoln never lost faith in the people. He was not
a demagogic pretence to mould party politics. He be-
lieved in the people. He trusted them. He was loved by
them. He drew his inspirations from them. He dwelt in
their hearts and their homes and their sanctuaries, and
he did what so few public men do, and what too many
Republicans are not doing in these days. He never failed
to answer his critics on all possible occasions. He never
hid behind that cowardly plea of contemptuous silence.
He was always talking to the people, either by letters or
through the press, telling them his policies, and they in
turn trusted him as their prophet and their shepherd, and
when he called, they came with their all to the altar of
sacrifice.
History paints no picture like it. Sons of pious an-
cestors, striplings from colleges, students from theo-
logical seminaries, young lawyers in their offices, me-
chanics from their benches, lumbermen from the forests,
farmers from their plows, all with one refrain in their
hearts and one song on their lips : We're coming, Father
Abraham, three hundred thousand strong. (Applause.)
Other allies crowd that picture, just as the children of
Israel gave to the building of the temple ; so these people
of the North gave nearly three billions of dollars in popu-
lar loans. They gave over fifteen millions in private
charities. They suffered an increase of seven-fold in
their taxes. Out of every twenty able-bodied men, they
offered up nine to the sacrifice. Science lent its aid to
build bridges and roads to speed the progress of the army.
Surgeons gave their experience and skill. The most re-
fined and gentlest women of the land left homes of com-
fort and went down to the front, to nurse the wounded
and dying. Congregations gave up their clergymen.
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until five thousand ministers marched with the army to
keep unsullied the moral and religious character of the
men. Do you wonder that Abraham Lincoln trusted
this responsive host and that with his hand in theirs he
marched through storm, cloud and gloom until the sun-
light broke again upon the most magnificent exhibition
of Christian democracy this world has ever seen.
His life is a series of dramatic pictures. I see him now
in 1 83 1. He is just entering Sangamon County, Illinois,
for the first time. He is coming down the fork of a river
by that name, in a little canoe, penniless, friendless, beg-
ging for the necessaries of life. I see him thirty years
later. He is leaving the State of Illinois amidst the
glad acclaim of his fellow citizens; the postmaster of
New Salem, with its little fifteen houses, has become the
head of the nation. The captain of a volunteer back-
woods military company has become the Commander-in-
Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States. The
transition from the simple citizenship of Abe Lincoln to
the chieftainship of this land is marvelous to contemplate,
and could be witnessed in no other country, and he takes
the helm of the ship of state in the midst of a tornado.
Seven States had seceded before he takes the oath of
office. Four more follow. The army is scattered in hos-
tile States, its officers resigning and joining the service
of the Confederates. The navy scattered to the ends of
the earth. Members of Congress talking treason in the
streets of Washington, and resigning; the Supreme
Court unfriendly to the Union ; Europe hostile ; the treas-
ury bankrupt. Tremendous problems for this untried
man, yet he faces it just as he faced the hardships of his
boyhood days, and in the storm and stress I see him smile
and I hear him say, "Let us believe that through the
clouds the sun still shines." (Applause.)
I see him now as a man of war. He arms two millions
of men. He gathers a half a million horses. He drives
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
his artillery twelve hundred miles in a single week. He
fights over six hundred battles. He spends three billions
of dollars. He suspends the act of habeas corpus. He
hold in the hollow of his hand the power of life and
prison and death. A single word from this man a mil-
lion men spring to their arms, regiment on regiment, bri-
gade upon brigade, corps on corps; another word and
they march through forests, across streams, over fields ;
cannon may rend them, half their number may fall, and
at another word from this man half a million more spring
to take their places in the carnival of death. Power on
the one side, difficulty on the other; hostile armies in
front, timid and harping friends in the rear. A weaker
man would have followed the easy pathway of a despot,
but this giant of the West never falters, and in all of the
grandeur and the power he wielded he remains the sim-
plest, kindest, gentlest man, grieving with the orphan's
grief and shedding his tears upon the soldier's grave.
No man can thoroughly understand the character of
Lincoln without a recognition of his faith in God. He
believed implicitly in God. As he left Springfield, he
said to his friends and neighbors: "I go to assume a
duty and responsibility greater than that assumed by any
President, save perhaps Washington. He could not have
succeeded without the aid of divine Providence, upon
whom at all times he relied. Upon that same Almighty
power I place my reliance. Pray for me that I may have
divine assistance, without which I cannot succeed, but
with which I cannot fail." Whenever Bishop Ames and
Bishop Simpson went to Washington, both of them
clergymen of the Methodist Church, they called upon the
great emancipator at the White House, and they never
were allowed to leave until they were invited into a pri-
vate room for a word of prayer. Lincoln believed in the
efficacy of prayer.
Great man as he was, Lincoln was a human man, and
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he was so great that he was easily approachable. Only
small minds are compelled to surround themselves with
ceremony and meretricious forms. Lincoln was the same
to the pleading mother as to the imperious King ; the same
to the private soldier as to the commanding General. He
did not patronize the one ; he did not bend to the other.
He was a simple, great, good man. And he had a heart.
That is what every public man should have — a heart as
well as a head. He could not endure suffering in any
form. Why, he would ford an icy stream to succor a
whining dog, and he would stop in the midst of his jour-
ney to gather up some fallen fledgling and restore them
to their nests. Some of these old veterans will tell you
that in spite of his great Secretary of War and command-
ing generals, at the instance of a pleading father, mother,
brother or son, he pardoned soldier after soldier, because
he said, "The enemy are shooting enough of our boys
without our shooting any more," and when he had
granted pardon he never could rest until he was assured
that the orders reached the place of execution before the
execution occurred.
In one case, a wife of one of Mosby's men, who had
been caught in our lines, tried and sentenced to be shot,
came to Lincoln to plead for her husband. Lincoln heard
her plea, and he said, "Madam, was he a good husband
and a good father, or did he drink and abuse you ?" "Oh,
no," said the poor woman, "he wTas a good husband and
a good father, and we cannot do without him. The only
fault he had, he was a fool about politics." (Laughter.)
"He was born in the South. I was born in the North,
and if you will only pardon him and give him to me, I
will see that he never fights against the North again."
"Well," said Lincoln, "T will pardon him, and I will
turn him over to you for safe-keeping," and the poor
woman, overcome with joy, broke down into hysterical
weeping, and then Lincoln, to relieve the situation, looked
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
at her and said, "Why, my good woman, if I had known
this would have given you so much trouble, I would not
have pardoned him." (Laughter.)
On another occasion, a father was pleading for the
life of his son, who had been sentenced to be shot as a
deserter, and after hearing his plea, Lincoln called in
one of his secretaries and said, "Telegraph General
Butler to suspend execution in this case until further
orders from me." The father looked at him and said,
"Mr. President, I cannot take that message to that boy's
mother. She is distracted now and almost hysterical with
anxiety, and she will fear lest you change your mind and
execute her boy." "Well," said the President, "you
know I have to do the best I can with this administration,
and my generals tell me that my mercy is destroying all
discipline as it is, but you go home, and you tell that boy's
mother that if he lives until they get further orders from
me, that when he does die people will say that Old Me-
thuselah was a babe compared with him." (Laughter.)
Lincoln said, "I want it said of me that I plucked a thistle
and I planted a flower wherever a flower would grow."
Lincoln's humor was keen and logical, and not light and
frivolous, as is sometimes thought. His stories always
illustrated a point. They drove home an argument.
They made a link in the chain of logic. He was so plain
in his method of speech he could be understood by all.
His humor was at times like a parable. On one occasion,
when some of our good ministerial friends went down
to Washington to complain of General Grant, the only
man who at that time was winning victories, because
they said General Grant was drinking too much whiskey,
Lincoln's reply to the delegation that if they could only
tell him what kind of whiskey Grant drank he would
give it to the rest of his generals, was a sufficient answer
to the charge, whether true or false. When our dear
old friend, Horace Greeley, was complaining, because
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Lincoln was not treating the advances of the South in
proper spirit and did not send a Peace Commission to
treat with the Peace Commissioners from the Confed-
erate States, who had taken refuge up in Canada, Lin-
coln saw the humor of the situation, and he took Greeley
at his word, and appointed him on that Commission. Of
course, Greeley failed. And Lincoln's judgment was
again vindicated. When Vallandingham in Ohio was
tried for seditious utterances and sentenced by the court,
and was then posing as what his friends termed a martyr
to judicial tyranny, Lincoln's humor again came to the
relief of the situation. He suspended the sentence of
the court, and he ordered that poor Vallandingham be
conducted to his friends in the South, where he could
rest in peace and safety. The whole country laughed,
and the danger was over.
Lincoln's magnanimity and humor often exposed the
insincerity and hypocrisy of his foes, and yet no words
of ridicule, no forms of opprobrium, no license of car-
toon were too great or too bitter to be used against this
gentlest and kindest of men. It is one of the strange
characteristics of us American people, who claim we love
fair play, that we delight at times in ex parte criticisms
of our public officials, without any knowledge on our
part of the motives which actuate them or the reasons
for their judgment. "Judge not, that ye be not judged,"
is too often forgotten in this land. Reference to this
injustice which at times almost broke Lincoln's heart,
is made only as an observation in the treatment of our
public men and a reminder that Lincoln lived long
enough to silence his critics and his foes. London Punch ,
one of his bitterest revilers, wrote these four lines upon
the occasion of his death :
"Beside this corpse which has for winding sheets
The Stars and Stripes he lived to weave anew,
Between the mourners at his head and feet,
Sav, scurrile Jester, is there room for you?"
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
Ah, yes, Lincoln's charity was a mantle broad enough
to cover all. After all, time is the test. And Lincoln
has escaped oblivion, and his face and his fame grow
dearer and greater and clearer as the years roll on, just
as does Moses in Israel or Shakespeare in literature, be-
cause he was a great, good man.
When the curtain fell upon that final scene at Appa-
mattox, Lincoln was the supreme victor of the hour. He
had freed the slave. He had saved the Union. He had
vindicated his wisdom and judgment before the world,
and at that moment he went down to Richmond and he
walked up the landing towards the Capitol Square, and
as he entered that square someone touched him on the
arm and said, "Look, Mr. Lincoln, there is your flag
waving over the Capitol." Lincoln looked up and he
saw the Stars and Stripes floating over the house from
which Jefferson Davis had just fled, and a look of ineffa-
ble gratitude lit up his countenance as he realized that
the consummation of his lifetime had come, and that
those colors waved over the doom of the Confederacy and
the triumph of the Union cause.
The circumstances of his death need no review.
Amidst the general rejoicing of his countrymen, this
hero of peace and war fell upon his completed work,
April 14th, 1865; his eyelids closed, and his head fell
upon his breast in peace.
The age of miracles we are wont to say is gone, but
the age of an ever-living personal God, who guards our
footsteps as He watches the spirit's flight, is still our
heritage. Lincoln's fame and greatness and character
cannot be measured by human standards. He came and
went as a messenger, and shall we not believe that that
lowly babe, born out in the wilds of the Kentucky woods,
was sent to save the Union and to free the slaves, and
that when his work was done God called him back to his
home in the skies?
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All about us are the things he left. There's the black
man and his freedom. There's the schoolboy with his
declamation. There's the fireside circle with his story
and picture. There's his greeting in the poet's lines, and
his homely face in the sculptor's art. There's the justice
of American institutions he regenerated and the equality
of privilege and opportunity he bequeathed. There's
his glory, shining in that unsullied flag that carried
liberty to Cuba and a new message of hope to the brown-
skinned race at Manila, and there above the rancor of
faction and the tumult of debate is heard the sweet obli-
gate of his malice toward none and charity towards all.
The master spirit of the republic, he touches the cords
of memory and wakes the better angels of our nature,
the nation's vicarious sacrifice, his birth a sacrament, his
life a prayer, his death a benediction. (Prolonged
applause.)
The Toastmaster : And when next Governor Stokes
comes as our guest, there will not be eight, or any, who
will say that they had made the best speech on Lincoln.
Just pardon me one moment, and let me read a few lines
that seem to me to fittingly follow this great speech.
"And so they buried Lincoln ! Strange, in vain. Has
any creature thought of Lincoln laid in any vault 'neath
any coffined lot, in all the years since that wild spring of
pain ? 'Tis false. He never in the grave hath lain. You
could not bury him, although you slid upon his clay the
Cheops pyramid or heaped it with the Rocky Mountain
chain."
No meeting in memory of Lincoln is entirely complete
without hearing the immortal Gettysburg address, and
therefore I will ask Mr. Alexander V. Campbell, one of
the old-time members of the club, to read it.
( Gettysburg address read by Mr. Campbell. )
The Toastmaster: Gentlemen and ladies, T hardly
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Address of Hon. Edward C. Stokes
know how to introduce the next speaker. He has really
had so many titles that almost anything would go. He
was a soldier in the Civil War; he was a legislator in
West Virginia; he was Governor of the State. After
that he was a Federal Judge. When Mr. Hayes was
President, he was the Secretary of the Navy. He did
not particularly want to leave the bench. The people of
West Virginia and all that Federal circuit wanted to re-
tain him forever, but when they got into something of a
difficulty down in the Legislature of the State of Vir-
ginia and something like 74 ballots for Senator had been
had, someone with a prescience as to events nominated
Nathan Goff for Senator. He was elected by the Legis-
lature, and he stepped from the judicial branch of the
government to the legislative, and became Senator of
the United States. He personally knew Abraham Lin-
coln. I cannot give him all his titles. Therefore, I will
introduce him as Lincoln's friend, Nathan Goff.
[33J
ADDRESS OF
Hon. NATHAN GOFF
Mr. Goff: Mr. Toastmaster, Ladies and Gentlemen:
It is sometimes embarrassing to speak after such an in-
troduction as that. It makes one think that likely too
much may be expected of him, and if that be true to-
night, what a fearful ordeal I have to go through, for
after the wonderful, brilliant, eloquent and historical
review of the history of this land and Abraham Lincoln,
what is there left for mortal to-night to say ? A gentle-
man talking with me this evening as I came into the hall
stated, "Senator, what are you to talk of to-night? Will
you give me a copy of your address, that I may hand it to
the press?" and I said, "I beg your pardon, but I cannot.
I never wrote a speech in my life." (Applause.) Then
he said, "Will you tell me what you are going to talk
of?" I said, "I will tell you what a friend said to me."
I wonder if that friend did not know what the Governor
from the shores of Jersey was going to say. I wonder
if he did not know there was nothing left to say. There
is a grand old Biblical story of the gleaners, those that
passed through the harvest field, gathered the few stray
grain of hay, or wheat, or rye that might be left, and it
is said there that a few in sympathy dropped a few
sheathes for the gleaners. Can anybody tell where the
few were dropped to-night? (Laughter.) Now, I am
just going to talk to you a few moments this evening, just
around the outskirts, as it were, and I beg the pardon of
my brother, the Senator from Idaho, when, if I take
much more of the field, I pray that God may have mercy
on his oratorical soul. Now, your distinguished and
eloquent Toastmaster has said that I knew Abraham
Lincoln, and probably while we are discussing that won-
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derful character it would be just as well that I com-
menced in saying what he meant by that illusion. It so
happened that the fates decreed that I should be born
south of Mason and Dixon's line in Virginia, and para-
doxial as it may appear, the loyalty to the flag that was
always mine made me a traitor to Virginia. (Applause. )
In my boyhood days, I loved the banner of my fathers.
My college friends, the boys of my youth, went the other
way. I loved the old flag. I loved the Union of the
States. I enlisted under the banner of the blue (ap-
plause), and through the wars of the republic, from the
first battle fought, when blood was shed in the State of
Virginia, down to the surrender of Appomattox, as God
gave me to see my duty as a soldier under that flag, I
did it. (Applause.) In the vicissitudes of war there, as
it came to many, I fell into the hands of the enemy. I
yielded, as I was compelled to do with the overwhelming
of that enemy, and I awoke, finding myself in the prison
of Libby. Those who fought and who honestly likely
believed that I was a traitor to my State and that my
father was, also thought, having me in their power, they
would show what a traitor to Virginia meant. He was
to be tried for treason, but it so happened that at that
time that in the Federal power there came a Confederate
major, I holdine the rank of a major in the Union Army.
That man had been tried as a spy before I was captured.
I knew the incidents attending his trial, because he was
tried and convicted before I was so captured. I know
that under the laws of war he was justly convicted. I
knew from my readings as a schoolboy of the agony it
was with which he, who was first in war, first in peace
and first in the hearts of his countrymen, signed the death
warrant of Andre. It was his imperative duty so to do.
The powers that reigned in the Confederacy selected
your speaker as a hostage for that man, and said. "As
you do unto Almsley, so we will do unto Goff," and sent
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Address of Hon. Nathan Goff
that word to the administration at Washington. I ex-
pected but little relief. Weary weeks and months went
by with that shadow over me. Weary weeks and months
was I told it is but a short time till the hangman's noose
shall be yours, and one morning I was enlivened by a
flag of truce note brought to me generously by my
keepers. I read it eagerly. It said, "Young man, be
cheerful ; you are not forgotten. The men in charge at
Washington have not forgotten their soldiers." The
name signed to that was the greatest name in the history
of humanity or civilization. The name of one who, in
enduring bronze and chiseled marble, will live through all
time and into eternity. A man among men, a statesmen
among statesmen, a martyr among martyrs, a President
among Presidents, God's grandest gift of man to man,
Abraham Lincoln. (Applause.) Surely, I took heart;
surely, I was encouraged. I wrote him a note in reply,
doubting very much that it would ever reach its desti-
nation, but it did, and the archives of the War Depart-
ment show it, and in reply to that note — and pardon me
if I do not say what I wrote — but in reply to that note he
wrote again and he said, "Boys like you are worth more
in the Federal Army than all of the Confederate majors
we have got, and you are coming home." I use those
words, "you are coming home," because a few short
weeks afterwards he said that to me again. I went home.
I left the miserable cells of Libby. I left the dark walls
of the penitentiary at Salisbury. I went down the broad
bosom of the James on a Confederate truce boat, and as
I rounded the bend in that beautiful river, and God's
sunshine was just breaking over the level valley, I saw
the magnificent steamer, the City of New York, coming
up, and the beautiful flag of the country floating. It was
the loveliest sight that God Almighty ever let human
eyes gaze upon. (Applause.) I landed at Annapolis,
and I was a little startled to receive a notice there, handed
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me by Major Mulford, the Union Commissioner of Ex-
change, and it read, "You are directed to report imme-
diately to the Secretary of War at Washington." I was
quite a boy. I was a little scared. I did not know exactly
what it meant, but as a matter of course, being a soldier,
I obeyed the order, and I presented myself the next day
to the Secretary of War, a great secretary, a great man,
Edwin M. Stanton. (Applause.) He said, "Young
man, the President directed me to send that order. I will
give you a letter of introduction to him," and he wrote it
on those papers that so many of us are familiar with,
with "War Department" at the head: "The bearer of
this is the Major GofT you directed to be exchanged.
E. M. Stanton." These little notes are at my museum
to-day. I hardly know what else to call it — very valuable
to me, too; at least, dear mementoes of those early days
of my life. I took it to the White House. I entered that
old cabinet chamber. It was crowded to excess, and I
waited my turn. In those days, so great was the throng
that they formed in line to pass the Chief Executive. I
saw some of the incidents that our friend alluded to
to-night. I saw the praying wife, the supplicating
mother, the begging father, the aged, the young, the boy,
the girl, all passing in review. I looked on the face of
that wonderful man then for the first time. He had a
kind word for all. It was a wonderful, indescribable
face, so full of human charity, of pity, of desiring to aid
all. I saw him take by the hand one by one. and I
could tell when he said an encouraging word. His own
face lighted and the smile on the countenance of those
that he spoke to indicated it. I saw when he deemed it
his duty to hesitate for a moment. I felt for those who
felt discouraged, for I knew not what might be coming
for myself, but finally I reached him. The great throng
passed through, and as I approached him, looking at me,
studying me, reading from my uniform that T was a
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Address of Hon. Nathan Goff
Major in the Federal Army, reading from my appear-
ance that I was not very well — for six months in a Con-
federate prison does not contribute to one's personal
appearance — and he said, "Major, you are not very well,
are you? Can I do anything for you?" and I handed
him the card, and he took it, looked at it, dropped it.
"Not very well ; should think not. Come with me," and
almost with his great arms around me he took me into
the library. He said, "Stay here; rest here until I am
through with this audience; it will not be long." That
was my first introduction to this man. I waited for him,
and he came in a short time. He said, "I have some
questions to ask you. I do not ask you to answer them
this evening. Take them with you, write your answers,
and give them to me to-morrow. Do not come when the
rush and the crush is here, and do not come as you come
to-day. This card in writing will bring you into the
library, and I will see you there." I took those questions.
They related to the suffering soldiers in Confederate
prisons. At that time the exchange had been suspended
and men had filled the prisons of the South, both at Libby,
Belle Isle and Andersonville, and they were dying by
the score, and the great heart of this man went out to
them. I found that he had propounded the same ques-
tions to a number of others who came back from Southern
prisons, and by their answers was this great President
and Commander-in-Chief to determine the course that
he would take, as to whether or not those soldiers were
to be brought home. As God gave me to see my duty, I
answered those questions, and the next day, according
to his directions, I was there and presented them, and
there with him was his great Secretary of War. Now,
then, he said, "Young man, read the answer to your first
question," and I did. "Now, the second," and I did; and
he turned to the Secretary and said, "I told you so, Mr.
Secretary. Now, the third" ; I did. "That is in accord-
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ance with their answers, Mr. Secretary. Now, another" ;
and I did. I should, in order to understand a remark
that he made, have stated a moment ago that he said to
me, "What did you do those weary, dreary months in
prison?" I said, "I had chosen the profession of the
law before I entered the army. I brought certain vol-
umes and read them. I brought Blackstone and Chitty
and Parsons, and I can repeat almost every word they
have. I had nothing else to do." Well, he went on then
with his questions and his conversation to the Secretary.
He said, "Mr. Stanton, this is terrible." Mr. Stanton
said, "Yes." "Mr. Stanton, don't you think the boys had
better come home?" "Mr. President," his reply was, "I
have discussed that matter with you in substance." "Mr.
Secretary, I think the boys will come home." "Mr.
President, it is not war" ; and he made a remark then as
to the truth of which I could but testify, and as to which
I was a walking, talking, living example. "Mr. Presi-
dent, do you realize that you are sending twenty-five or
thirty thousand strong men into the army of the Con-
federacy, and receiving back twenty-five or thirty thou-
sand walking skeletons?" But Abraham Lincoln, great
as he has been portrayed; Abraham Lincoln, who has
been pictured so friendly here to-night; Abraham Lin-
coln, from whom none of us can take his glory or none
of us add to his fame, said, "Mr. Stanton, the boys are
coming home" (applause), and then in remembrance of
what we had talked of the day before, when I was resting
on the lounge and he was talking with me, he said.
"Young man, you have won your first case." (Ap-
plause.) Now, that was the Abraham Lincoln that I
knew, and that I have endeavored to portray to you to-
night, keeping in mind my last remark; what more can I
say of him ? Leaving that subject then, what else is there
for me to talk about ? My friend, Borah, is going to talk
of the Republican party. That is a subject that anyone,
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Address of Hon. Nathan Goff
it seems to me, especially in the presence of such an
audience as this, can talk about, but I am not a preacher,
you see. Then, as my friend suggested to me, there is
not anything left for you to talk about, unless it is the
tariff. Well, anyhow, I am just going to detain you a
few minutes to say that I am a protective tariff man
(applause), and I have been so from my boyhood. Born
in that Southern land that I have told you about, looking
at its wonderful topography, impressed with its mag-
nificent wealth, a student in its colleges, driving over the
magnificent mountainway from tidewater Virginia to
Transylvania and the Ohio Valley, I could but be im-
pressed with that magnificent gift that God Almighty
had given to His children of man, and yet all was as quiet
as the grave. The magnificent, pristine forest stood un-
touched; the wonderful development of coal had never
been mined. Boy as I was, I could but wonder "why it
is," and the question that I solved was the question that
you elucidated to-night, the question of slavery. I lived
in a land where slavery prevailed and all the men around
me were owners of slaves. Now, until the discovery of
the cotton gins and the information that it gave to the
South, that slavery and cotton production would make
them immensely wealthy, there had been no protective
tariff. I mean a high protective tariff, a protective tariff
that in fact protects. Why was this situation existing in
Virginia and through the South? Any student of the
history of this country knows this fact: That early in
the nation, when our fathers founded the republic, it
was as Madison, the expounder of the Constitution, said
upon this question of protection, "We are all Republicans,
and we are all Federalists," and George Washington,
when he signed the first protective tariff, realized that
fact, and under it the Colonies or the States then pros-
pered as no country had ever before prospered. Our
English rulers looked with envy upon the Colonies when
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The Republican Club
they attempted to be independent, so far as manufactures
was concerned. The English Parliament passed an Act
that it shall be unlawful for the Colonies to manufacture
woolen goods. It shall be unlawful for the Colonies to
establish mills and factories, and then finally, when the
Colonies did establish the mills, the Parliament passed
an Act. Now, think of it, men of New York! They
passed an Act that the establishment of mills and fac-
tories in the Colonies are hereby prohibited and the
Colonial Governors are hereby required to do what ? To
abate them within sixty days as nuisances. No wonder
then we were dependent upon the English or foreign
countries for our manufactured articles. Now, presto,
change. Under this Act that I have just alluded to, all
over the land our mills and our factories sprang up.
Employment was given to labor. We made our own
manufactured goods. We ceased to import. That con-
tinued down to the time in substance — there were some
little restrictions when we had what we might call the
Walker Tariff Act. The country had been prospering
before. All over the land mills closed down. Over in
Pennsylvania, where I spent some of my boyhood days
with some college friends, the furnaces died out. There
was no longer smoke from the stacks. My Democratic
friends called the era in our history under the Walker Act
as a golden era. They had plenty of money, they said.
Plenty of money ! Where was it ? The money was in the
Federal treasury, but it was not in the pockets of the
people. There were disasters throughout the land, from
one end to the other. The only citations thst I want to
make to you to-night are a few historical references, and
I have deemed it wise to confine them as far as practica-
ble to Democratic efforts. If I quote a Republican effort,
they say, "Why, oh, yes, as a matter of course; that is
all right; we expected you to do that." Now, I want to
call your attention to the reference to the condition of
[42 ]
Address of Hon. Nathan Goff
the country on this question made by President Jackson.
Now, old Hickory — old Andy Jackson — was a pretty
good President, after all. He said — now I am quoting
from his message of December 4th, 1832, and that I beg
you to remember was a protective tariff era. These are
his words: "Our country presents on every side marks
of prosperity and happiness unequalled perhaps in any
other portion of the world." A Democratic President.
Now came the tariff for revenue of 1832 to 1842. Under
it, all of you who are familiar with the history of our
country, recall the conditions that I have just pictured.
Now I read from the message of President Polk of De-
cember 8th, 1846: "Labor in all its branches is receiving
an ample reward, while education, science and wages are
rapidly enlarging the means of social happiness. The
progress of our country in her career of greatness, not
only in the vast expansion of our limits and in the rapid
increase of our population, but in its resources and in its
wealth and in the happy condition of our people, is with-
out an example in the history of nations." Then came
the revenue tariff of 1846. Now I invite your attention
particularly to what is known as the Walker Act. Under
it, as I have stated, our factories were closed. At that
time the water went by our mills, but the wheels did not
turn. President Filmore, in his message of December
2nd, 1 85 1, used these words: "The value of our exports
of breadstuffs and provisions, which it was supposed the
incentive of a low tariff and large importations from
abroad would have greatly augmented, has fallen from
$68,000,000 in 1847 to $26,000,000 in 1850. The policy
which dictated a low rate of duties on foreign merchan-
dise, it was thought by those who established it, would
tend to benefit the farming population of this country by
increasing the demand and raising the price of agricul-
tural products in foreign markets. The foregoing facts,
however, seem to show incontestably that no such result
[43]
The Republican Club
has followed." Now, one more quotation and I leave the
subject, and that was from the last Democratic President
in his message to Congress, December 8th, 1857: "The
earth has yielded her fruits abundantly, has bountifully
rewarded the toil of the husbandmen. Our great staples
have commanded high prices until within a brief period
our manufacturing, mineral and mechanical occupations
have largely partaken generally of the prosperity. We
have produced all the elements of material wealth in rich
abundance, and yet, notwithstanding all these advan-
tages, our country in its monetary interests is at the
present moment in a deplorable condition ; in the midst of
unsurpassed plenty in all the productions and in the ele-
ments of national wealth, we find our manufactures sus-
pended, our public enterprises abandoned and thousands
of useful laborers thrown out of employment and reduced
to want." That condition is existing over in Washing-
ton to-day. We have to-day an administration — let me
give you the exact figures, because it is monstrous. I
want to show it to you. It will take but a moment of
your time. We have to-day a minority administration,
the President receiving 6,293,120 votes. William H.
Taft (applause) received 3,485,082 votes. Theodore
Roosevelt received 4,119,582 votes. Eugene V. Debs
received 901,839 votes. Eugene W. Chaffin received
206,487 votes. Now, here is the question. The aggre-
gate vote against President Wilson was 8,741,680, while
President Wilson's vote was 6,293,000. Now, there are
the figures showing that President Wilson is a minority
President on the votes of the people by 2,244,856 votes.
I say that is monstrous, and yet I say it is a tribute to our
republican form of government (applause) because from
one end of the land to the other there has been acquies-
cence in that decision, and he was constitutionally elected.
I allude to it to-night to ask my friends of this country not
to do that thing again (applause) unless the Republican
[44]
Address of Hon. Nathan Goff
party — and it is the party that all men ought to love, be-
cause it is the party of liberty and freedom, the party
that is not a party of mere expediency, a party that hews
to the chalk lines, let the chips fall where they will —
unless, I say, we do get together upon that, this thing
will be repeated in the fall election and repeated in the
next Presidential election. Now, one word and good-
night. The flag that we all love so, the flag for which the
fathers of the republic contended, it typifies to-night all
that men hold dear in civilization. Wherever it floats
it is welcomed by the people who understand existing
conditions. It stands everywhere as typifying what the
great republic is to-night, the land unto which the eyes
of the weary and the down-pressed of all countries are
turned. Do not let us interfere with it. Let us picture it
as it is to-night and let us see by our votes that we
continue in the future what has been in the past. (Ap-
plause. )
The Toastmaster : Ladies and gentlemen, in introduc-
ing the next speaker it is like saying to an old-time per-
sonal friend, "Get up here and make this audience like
you as much as the men do who had the honor of serving
in Congress with you. Senator Borah endeared himself
to Bennet and Parsons and me when we first went down
there, and we are proud of his having been elevated to
what some people call the Upper House, but which Joe
Cannon always insisted upon calling the co-ordinate
branch. I introduce' you to Senator William E. Borah,
who will say something about the Republican party.
[45]
ADDRESS OF
Hon. WILLIAM E. BORAH
Mr. President, when the returns came in last Novem-
ber a year ago, and it was known that the then dominant
party had carried but two States, the opinion quite gen-
erally prevailed that one of the most interesting and re-
markable chapters in the annals of political parties was
drawing to a close. Indomitable and aggressive, direct-
ing with remarkable skill and judgment the course of
government for fifty years, the party now seemed near-
ing complete disorganization. But the signs were mis-
read. It was not dissolution, but evolution. This fearful
wreck simply proved in a grim, conclusive way that a
new era in politics had been ushered in, that the voters
had determined in their own way that the organization
of the party must be at all times the servant and not the
master, that political parties, regardless of their tradi-
tions and past achievements, must be kept and conducted
on a high plane, and held in touch with the demands and
needs of the hour. Subsequent events disclosed that the
latter interpretation was correct.
The first call to arms after the defeat was out in the
great State of Michigan — out there among those people
where, over half a century ago, at a meeting under the
oaks, the party was organized. In that contest, through
the sheer courage and party devotion of the rank and
file, the Republican ticket won over all competitors. Not
only hundreds but thousands who recorded their votes
of protest in the preceding election renewed their allegi-
ance to the Republican party. The same thing in the
same way happened in the Congressional election in
Maine. The spring registration in several States dis-
closed the same tendency. In the last November election
r 47i
The Republican Club
in the State of New Jersey nearly a hundred thousand
who had voted the third ticket returned; in Maryland,
fifty thousand out of fifty-seven thousand. In other
States the same trend was equally marked and unmis-
takable. This exceptional showing was almost as start-
ling as the result of the previous November election. It
brought from the brilliant young chairman of the new
dominant party the published statement that the real
adversary of his party in the next campaign would be no
other than the Republican party.
To whom do we owe this revival of party strength, this
resuscitation of party power? To the organization?
Certainly not. To leadership, to generalship? Certainly
not. Had some Sheridan overtaken the routed forces
and called them back to order and victory? Certainly
not. We owe it to the party loyalty, the courage, the
high and steadfast purpose of the Republican voters.
Those who had dared to tear down dared to rebuild, and
to do so upon broad lines and in harmony with the true
historic bent of the organization, with past achievements
and future obligations. It was a singular exhibition of
self-reliant citizenship and of party loyalty. To record
their protest and return with such remarkable unity was
to place conviction and party ideals above position and
power, and to measure duty not by the passing advan-
tages of office or station, but by the fundamental obliga-
tions of citizenship. It demonstrated that to those men
Republicanism is not an expediency but a vital, elemental
principle of social development, a distinct and positive
exposition of government, a potential agency of constant
advance and progress, recording from time to time great
statutes and constructing great institution? of govern-
ment, and that neither the indifferent selfishness of en-
trenched conservatism, nor the chagrin and confusion of
defeat, could long change its course, nor stay its progress.
There is no mistaking what all this means. Tt means
[48]
Address of Hon. William E. Borah
that the voters of the party are too independent to con-
done what they conceive to be a mistake or a wrong, and
too wise to abandon permanently the name, the traditions,
the prestige and honor that they and their forbears
have established and built up through fifty years of re-
lentless political warfare. It means that the voters who
have been reared in this world-renowned school of Re-
publican politics are after all bound together by a com-
mon conviction and dominated by a common faith. It
means they are convinceed that out of this great body of
voters is to come the militant and progressive and aggres-
sive Republican party of the future — that there is no
stronger or more available force for wise and effective
work along progressive lines than those voters who have
stood eager and restless in the forefront of progress for
fifty years — from the unshackling of a race to the joining
in permanent wedlock the commercial and economic
forces of two oceans. It means that Republicanism in
its true concept, among and with those who constitute its
real strength and the bulwark of its power, is progress, is
liberalism, is growth. It means that no man or class of men
can turn the Republican party from its true course and
drag it down from its exalted station among the great
political factors of modern times, and it means, more-
over, that no man or class of men can wreck or destroy
it. The soldiers of Napoleon drew their inspiration from
the presence of their great commander, their endurance
and their daring seemed but the spell of that incompre-
hensible genius. But the men who followed Sheridan,
Sherman and Grant, imbued with a great cause, domi-
nated by a great purpose, could have changed com-
manders a score of times and still fought on to victory.
If every assumed leader and every committeeman of the
party from ocean shore to ocean shore should resign to-
night and announce that the hour of dissolution was at
hand, before the sun had set upon another day the rank
[49]
The Republican Club
and file would sieze the banner where it fell and straight-
way entrust it to loyal hands.
Mr. President, the division at Chicago arose by reason
and on account of an ancient and discredited method of
holding party conventions — a method in vogue with all
parties, but out of date and moribund, nevertheless. No
one was there seeking honor and place at the hands of
that convention who would not have been glad to utilize
the party had the results been satisfactory. Those who
afterwards left the party had expressed no doubt of the
wisdom of its established policies, or the integrity and
purpose and progressive bent of its membership, or as
to the efficiency of the party as an instrument for pro-
gressive legislation and administration. The fact that
they were there seeking honors at its disposal proved
conclusively that they were in accord with its principle,
had faith in its policies, and relied upon it as an instru-
mentality of progressive advancement. To suppose other-
wise would be to charge them with duplicity and insin-
cerity, a charge which I would be the last to make. In
fact, it was charged then, and it is charged now, that the
majority of the party, that is, the voters,, were one way and
the organization another — upon no other theory could
the action which followed be justified. I entertained and
I entertain that opinion myself. For these reasons some
of us thought that the essential thing to be done was to
change the system, the machinery of the party, in order
that there might never again be any question as to the
free play of opinion and the free expression of view of
the members, and to make certain beyond peradventure
the carrying out of the conviction and the purposes of
that splendid body of citizenship which, from the begin-
ning, has constituted the real strength of the party. It
seemed to some that it was wiser to get out and fight
from the outside. It seemed to others who were equally
sincere that it was lacking in strategy and effectiveness,
[50]
Address of Hon. William E. Borah
if not in courage, to give up the vantage of name and
prestige, of honor and achievement, when the sole fault
was one of organization and not in the membership or
policies. I do not criticize those who chose the former
method. For whatever charge may be made as to the
ambitions of individuals, no honest man would doubt the
high purposes and patriotism of the four million voters.
But I do say that every obstacle which stood in the way
of success of the cause, as we viewed it, has been com-
pletely removed. There has never been a time when
the machinery of the party was so completely subject to
the direction of the voters. Of course, this will be denied
by those who would destroy the party, whether it does
right or whether it does wrong, but it will not be denied
by those who investigate and sincerely want to see the
party reorganized and re-established, and made to do the
service of the people in this country as it performed that
service in its best days. Let the facts be submitted.
For years the question of representation in the Repub-
lican national convention has been a disturbing problem.
It was believed that the South had a vote in the conven-
tion out of all proportion to its vote at the polls. It was a
disgraceful affair in its influence at the convention which
nominated Harrison the second time. It was just as
much of an evil in 1904 and 1908 as in 191 2. The de-
sired change was defeated in 1904 by a small vote and
through the influence of those who afterwards came to
see its evils. But certainly that matter has been disposed
of. The Southern States now have but 164 votes, as
against 819 in the convention. It seems to me that upon
reflection all will concede that the reduction could go no
further without manifest injustice to some who are as
loyal and sincere Republicans as you will find anywhere
in the country. It is a common libel that Southern Re-
publicans are only Southern Federal officeholders. But
while patronage works its baneful influence there as else-
[51]
The Republican Club
where, there are thousands of Southern Republicans
who give evidence every day of their lives of a sincere
devotion to the principles of the party. I am not willing
either wholly to discourage or disfranchise such men.
Certainly those who approved and utilized the action of
the convention in 1904 and 1908, at a time when the
South had its full vote, and when there was patronage to
distribute, will have no occasion to find fault with the
convention of 191 6, so far as this question is concerned,
since the South has been reduced to a minimum, and
there will be no patronage to distribute.
But that was by no means the controlling or vital
question. The vital thing was to make the convention
wholly responsive to the will of the voters — to arrange
the machinery of the party so as to give free and untram-
meled sway to the views and purposes of those who must
win the fight upon election day. The organization has,
therefore, provided for the recognition and seating of all
primary elected delegates upon the certificates of the
canvassing board within the State. The National Com-
mittee does not pass upon their credentials. There can
be, under such circumstances, no contest. The delegates
will come as the unchallenged representatives of the peo-
ple to record their votes, both as to platform and candi-
dates. This is in its practical effect the national primary
and the nearest to the national primary that we will
likely have very soon. If all parties in the respective
States now urge primary laws for the election of dele-
gates to the national convention, as all parties should, we
will have in its practical effect the national primary. We
will not only have done away with the shameless scenes
of Chicago and Baltimore, but we will have platforms
which embody the convictions and aspirations of the
people, and candidates who receive their nominations
without obligations or pledges to any interest or power
other than the people themselves. The National Com-
[52]
Address of Hon. William E. Borah
mittee has been deprived of all power over primary
elected delegates; they will sit there like a painted ship
upon a painted ocean, just as useless and, from an artistic
standpoint, far less attractive.
Some of our friends want a new platform. So do I.
But I do not want a new platform nearly as much as I
want the right kind of a platform, and made under condi-
tions which will not give rise to any doubt as to its being
genuine. Platforms are utterly worthless and mislead-
ing; they signify nothing as to the real attitude and pur-
pose of the party unless they come as the result of an
earnest and determined contest, under conditions which
admit of a full expression of views, and at a time when
a great campaign is imminent, and the approaching con-
test calls from the workshop and the farm, from the
counting house, the factory and the mine, those whose
sole business in politics is to secure the best that can be
had for the general good, who ask for no place and seek
for no power. These people do not attend moot conven-
tions or take any considerable part in selecting hand-
picked delegates, and yet a Republican convention with-
out their full and earnest views would be a sham, a pre-
tense. So far as I am concerned, I do not want a plat-
form of expediency, a platform adopted in a formal
manner, even if it reads right. I want to know where
the Republican party in fact stands, and is going to
stand on these great issues. In a moot convention you
could never know. I want to see a downright fight,
where there is something more than paper and ink and
sounding phrases at issue, an absolute contest where the
people take part, so that when the result is recorded we
will have the real sentiment and the real convictions of
the party, and knowing them we can square ourselves for
the future. I want either the inspiration of Lodi or the
conclusiveness of Waterloo. I do not want a platform
drawn by bosses, or even by anointed leaders, weeks in
[53]
The Republican Club
advance of the convention, and carried like a stuccoed
and perfumed Egyptian mummy to the place of meeting
with which to conjure the multitude for another season,
but a living, breathing platform, voicing the purposes
and hopes of men and women who have rubbed against
the realities of life and the actual conditions of to-day. I
made up my mind long since that if at any time I have to
abandon the name which the sainted Lincoln chose with
which to conjure the hosts of freedom and progress, if I
must finally give over the proud memories which cluster
about those days, it will be after the majority of the party
has so spoken and upon questions of policy in a contest
that no one will ever misunderstand, and at a time when
there can be no mistake as to the issues.
To my way of thinking, politics is the most serious
thing that can engage the public attention of men. It is
in the last analysis the State, the government, burdened
and freighted with the concerns of an entire people. The
family, the home, the social and physical well-being of
the citizen are, after all, anchored in politics, and political
parties are therefore the only effective instruments
through and by means of which the people of a represen-
tative democracy can effectuate their purposes or realize
as citizens their highest aspirations. The fact that some
men prostitute these instrumentalities of government to
selfish and ignoble ends, the fact that political pharisees
and barren esthetes draw back from the stern conflicts
where the fundamental rights of men are hammered and
fashioned into laws and institutions, does not in the least
change the proposition that through and by means of
politics and political organizations do the people preserve
their rights and maintain their government. We can,
therefore, afford to be patient, so that when the party
records its policies it will be under such circumstances
that though all men may not accept them, no one will
doubt their genuineness. We can afford to stay out of
[54]
Address of Hon. William E. Borah
power for another season, but we cannot afford as a
party to face the tremendous problems which are before
us until we face them ri^ht.
The next Republican National Convention will be in
the hands and under the control of the voters of the party.
Those who believe in the Republican party, who respect
its traditions and have helped to make its history, those
who cannot but feel a quickened pulse and a livelier sense
of civic pride at the mention of the name of the great
leaders of the party, and, above all, those who, looking
to the future, hope to take up again the great problems
of humanity and the tasks of government, may now di-
rect its course and measure its destiny. If, as I believe,
the vast majority of the voters of the party are fully alive
to the demands and needs of our present citizenship; if,
as I believe, they are in sympathy with the reforms which
conform to the best interests of our common country,
then nothing can prevent the party platform and the
party candidates from becoming the embodiment and the
representative of those principles and policies. This is
the contest to which I look forward with hope ; yes, with
an abiding conviction that when the great body of voters
have spoken and had their views recorded, we will have
an untrammeled and unfettered party, alert to the duties
and capable of meeting the responsibilities which are now
before us and upon us. I speak plainly, but I speak just
as I feel. I am not one of those who believe that the
Republican party has made no mistakes, but I am one of
those who have no doubt that under a full and free ex-
pression of the voters it will again become a powerful
instrument for good.
Let us, therefore, have no platform of compromise,
and no harmony that is not based upon a common convic-
tion. We want a platform made at the immediate time, a
platform which speaks of battle and conflict, and which
will record in the harsh langauge of truth the actual con-
[55]
The Republican Club
victions of the majority of the Republican voters. If
the Republican voters are not progressive in the true,
sound sense of the term, then the way for some of us is
clear. If, on the other hand, they are, then, so far as I
am concerned, no mere question of organization shall be
permitted to stand in the way or to drive me out of the
party. There can be no compromise which will prevent
us doing less than our full duty toward the problems
which are before us and the millions of our countrymen
whose interests should be our constant concern.
Mr. President, when we plead for a progressive Re-
publican party, we do not plead for fancies, for abstrac-
tions, but for nothing more and nothing less than the
sincere and courageous adjustment and application of
sound principles of government to the industrial and
economic conditions of to-day, to the end that this may
not become a government of the few, of the rich and of
the strong, but remain still and always a government of
the people, by the people, and for the people. When our
party put the inter-State commerce act upon the statute
books this was denounced as Socialism and unworkable.
When it put the rebate act among our laws it was decried
as visionary and impracticable. When it enacted a pure
food law it was criticized as the last step in paternalism.
When the Sherman anti-trust law was put upon the
books it was pronounced by great lawyers as unenforce-
able, or if enforceable, unconstitutional. Wrhen the party
enacted a postal savings bank law and a parcels post iaw
these were regarded as further evidence of reckless and
headstrong paternalism. When the child labor bureau
was created, a solemn plea went up for the integrity of
the family and against the rude interference of the State
with family ties. Now, sir, we ask for nothing more and
will be reconciled with nothing less than the free, full
expression, and the full flow of opinion, in party organi-
zation and party affairs among its voters and members,
[56]
Address of Hon. William E. Borah
to the end that this great code of humane and progres-
sive laws, of wise and permanent institutions, may be ex-
tended, that the work may go on until political freedom
shall be at the beginning and industrial freedom at the
end of the party story; until monopoly, ten thousand
times worse than black slavery, shall understand that be-
tween it and republican institutions there is eternal war
— Mexican war, where all the captured are slain without
the benefit of clergy.
Mr. President, I have neither the time nor the dispo-
sition to go into a discussion of particular issues. Per-
haps this is not the occasion, certainly not at this late
hour. I can only say in conclusion that Republicanism,
as I understand it in its real scope and purpose, is a the-
ory of government, an organic and vital belief in liberty
and justice, under the domination of order and law, striv-
ing for the best that can be had as fast as it can be had
in national growth and progress. It believes in our form
of government and that under its faithful administration,
and in harmony with its tremendous sweep and power,
the human family may reach its highest state of culture
and contentment. It reveres the work of the fathers and
pays feeling tribute to those who forfeited all for the
Union, but it lives not alone in the past. It looks forward
with eager confidence to the duties and responsibilities
of the future. It will not tear down, it will not destroy,
but it will go forward and meet the problems upon whose
solution depends the happiness and industrial freedom
of countless thousands. It wars upon no legitimate in-
dustry, it closes no mills, it recognizes no distinction in
race, but it believes now, as it believed fifty years ago,
that this government, and this goodly land, which a
bountiful Providence has given us, belongs to all, to the
many and not the few, white and black, rich and poor;
and that the supreme question of the hour is not alone the
making of wealth, but also its fair and equitable distribu-
[57]
The Republican Club
tion. It believes with its first great seer and prophet,
that "capital has its rights which are worthy of protec-
tion," but that "labor is prior to and the superior of
capital." That life is more than riches, and humanity
more than machinery. It rejects the Draconian code,
based on modern materialism, that human suffering and
social misery are the natural fruits of human progress.
It repudiates the doctrine of let well enough alone as the
maxim of intellectual cowards and entrenched privilege,
concealing beneath its gloss of peace and contentment the
elements of class domination and national decay. Finally,
sir, it faces the future not in pessimism and despair, but
with an unfaltering faith in republican institutions, and
the judgment and wisdom of the people, as from time to
time with brave and patient step they measure up to the
work. When you reach down into the hearts of the mil-
lions of Republican voters, men and women whose devo-
tion and foresight and patriotism have made this marvel-
ous history of the last fifty years, you will find written
there these broad and hopeful convictions, which are
bound in the end to have sway, bound in the end to direct
the party, and the sooner all who doubt or hold back
understand this and stand out of the line of fire, the better
for all concerned.
[58 1
GUESTS OF
^he T^epublican Club
OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK
President's Table
Honorable SAMUEL S. KOENIG
General HORACE PORTER
Honorable WILLIAM BARNES
General BENJAMIN F. TRACY
Doctor JOHN HOUSTON FINLEY
Honorable NATHAN GOFF
Honorable J. VAN VECHTEN OLCOTT
Honorable EDWARD C. STOKES
Honorable WILLIAM E. BORAH
Honorable CHAUNCEY M. DEPEW
Reverend WILLIAM CARTER. D.D.
Honorable LOUIS STERN
I 59 J
Members of the Club and their Guests
Alphabetically Arranged
Alexander, J. F.
Arnold, Lynn J.
Armstrong, Egbert J.
Applegate, J. B.
Austin, George C.
Allen, William
Allison, Bedford
Armstrong, John H.
Ackerly, Dana T.
Addoms, Mortimer C.
Addoms, Jr., Mortimer C.
Agnew, George B.
Allen, Rowland D.
Baumann, Gustav
Blanchard, James A.
Bonynge, Robert
Boyd, James
Ballard, R. W.
Bloch, Philip
Barry, James V.
Beers, George E.
Boyle, John, Jr.
Bird, Edward Dimon
Brewer, Reuben G.
Bickford, L. M.
Brodmerkel, Charles, Jr.
Brookfield, Frank
Butler, T. E.
Burns, M. F.
Bronson, Miles
Becker, James H.
Bent, F. P.
Bedell, Walter E.
Bernheimer, Charles L.
Bernheimer Chas. L. (guest)
Bernheimer Chas. L. (guest)
Beyer, Herman W.
Bliven, H. N.
Bralower, Henry G.
Braun, Marcus
Brookfield, Henry M.
Brooks, Franklin
Brown, James D.
Brown, J. Adams
Brough, Alexander
Brush, Edward F.
Brush, Edward F. (guest)
Burns, William G.
Burns, Kenneth
Burns, Grant
Barnes, Hon. William
Benjamin, George P.
Bennet, William S.
Birrell, Henry
Biglin, Bernard
Boomer, L. M.
Borah, Hon. William E.
Brainerd, Ira H.
Breed, James McV.
Brewster, Henry D.
Brice, Wilson B.
Briggs, Waldo C.
Brown, J. Alexander
Buckley, D. P.
Burdett, Lester C.
Brewster, S. D.
Bulkley, Frank
Catlin, Donald C.
Chapman, H. Livingston
Cornwall, A. Duncan
[61]
The Republican Club
Clark, W. H.
Clarke, C. Howell
Clift, Edward H.
Clark, Edward S. (guest)
Clark, Edward S.
Clark, Stephen C.
Cleary, Robert C.
Clarke, John Proctor
Clarke, Robert P.
Carter, Howard Cordis
Chambers, Hilary R.
Clarke, T. E.
Conklin, William G.
Cooper, Morris
Crumbie, Frank R.
Calder, William M.
Campbell, Samuel S.
Campbell, Alexander V.
Cannon, James G,
Carlton, Newcomb
Carr, William
Carroll, Lauren
Carter, D.D., Rev. William
Chilvers, William
Clowry, Robert C.
Cochran, Richard B.
Cogswell, C. V. R.
Cohen, William N.
Cook, Frank A.
Coney, Richard Grey
Corning, Frederick G.
Cocks, Wm. W.
Canfield, A. L.
Cobden, Rev. Richard
Duckham, W. H.
Day, Ralph A.
Day, Ralph A. (guest)
Day, Ralph A. (guest)
Day, Ralph A. (guest)
Day, Ralph A. (guest)
Debevoise, Thos. M:
Duft, Carl E.
Duffield, Howard
Davis, Henry Clark
Day, Benjamin M.
Durand, John S.
Deeves, J. Henry
Doane, George W.
Deeves, Lester P.
Dowling, W. S.
Dale, Francis C.
Dale, Alfred G.
Dawson, Allan
Dawson, William T.
Delamater, Roswell A.
Dargeon, W. J.
Davidson, Matthew H.
Depew, Hon. Chauncey M.
Depew, Chauncey M., Jr.
DeWitt, A. H.
Dutton, John A.
Duval, C. Louis
Duffield, Rev. Howard
Ellsworth, O. M.
Emery, Joseph H.
Emery, Alfred D.
Englander, Sam
Emery, E. W.
Estabrook, Henry D.
Einstein, William
Egan, Martin
Eilert, E. F.
Frank, Jacob
Friedman, Lester M.
Flanders, Walter C.
Fisher, W. G.
Fallows, Edward H.
Fourman, Paul G.
Felsinger, William
Ford, John
Frenkel, Emil
Frenkel, Emil (guest)
Fisher, Irving R., Jr.
62]
Members and their Guests
Fairchild, John F.
Foraker, Burch
Fairchild, Benjamin L.
Forcheimer, David S.
Fairchild, Hon. Samuel W.
Ferris, Frank A.
Ferris, Frank A., Jr.
Feiber, Samuel L.
Finch, Edward R.
Fleming, John J.
Folks, Ralph
Fowler, Charles A.
Frank, Lawrence D.
Finley, Dr. John Houston
Gibbs, Herbert H.
Goodrich, Edward I.
Guenther, Paul
Green, John Arthur
Goldstein, Emanuel
Guggenheim, Simon
Guggenheim, William
Gerhard, John G.
Gruber, Abraham
Goldsmith, Arthur J.
Guenther, Rudolph
Griffith, William M.
Gardner, George A.
Goldsticker, Samuel
Goldsticker, William
Grismer, Joseph R.
Green, Frank R.
Gilman, Theodore P.
Gilman, Theodore P., Jr.
Gerry, James L.
Gallagher, George B.
German Herold
Green, H. T. S.
Gleason, Albert H.
Goff, Hon. Nathan
Goff, Secy. Sen.
Griswold, I. H.
Hamilton, Alexander
Hartman, Paul
Haviland, Merritt E.
Heide, Henry
Hollander, Joseph L.
Holmes, Edwin T.
Holmes, Bayard P.
Hoops, Herman W.
Hubbard, Thomas H.
Humphrey, A. B. (guest)
Humphrey, Andrew B.
Haldenstein, I.
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Haldenstein, I. (guest)
Halstead, Jacob
Holmes, Rev. James E.
Hammond, John Henry
Herrington, Arthur
Holden, L. C.
Housman, Clarence J.
Housman, Frederick
Hilles, Charles D.
Huntington, S. V. V.
Holmes, Robert A.
Haynes, R. T.
Hayward, Harry W.
Hoffman, Charles F.
Hoffman, Wm. M. V.
Heydt, Charles E.
Heydt, Herman A.
Hurley, W. M.
Hurley, J. J.
Haskins, Bert
Horner, Richard W.
Howe, W. P.
Hamburger, Samuel B.
Henszen, Samuel A.
[63 J
The Republican Club
Irwin, John B.
Johnson, Reginald M.
Jones, William A., Jr.
Jones, Edwin A.
Johnston, Rufus P.
Jenkins, W. B.
Jarman, George W.
Kenyon, Allen D.
Kudlich, Herman C.
Kaufman, E. H.
Kuroy, J. A.
Kost, Fred W.
Kennedy, M. A.
Kennedy, John S.
Kellogg, Evans P.
Kavanaugh, George W.
Kathan, Reid A.
Kavanaugh, Frederick W.
Kerley, Charles Gilmore
Kirby, Thomas E.
Koenig, Hon. Samuel S.
Kroder, John
Kelley, Walter E.
Little, Luther B.
Leary, William
Lauterbach, Edward
Leslie, Warren
Logan, James
Levenson, Joseph
Levy, Aaron J.
Lambert, M.
Lambert, C. I.
Lambert, M. H.
Lewis, Richard J.
Lewis, R. V.
Lewis, William D.
Leaycraft, J. Edgar
Lecompte, Frank
Leary, George
Leeser, Jacob
Lehmaier, J. S.
Leikauf, John E.
Loeb, Jr., William
Lord, Chester S.
Lowerre, George H.
Lyon, F. A.
Little, John
Lawrence, James
Manville, H. E.
Merriam, Arthur L.
Merriam, Arthur L. (guest)
Merriam, Arthur L. (guest)
Meighan, Burton C.
Meury, Edward G.
Mook, Harry B.
Montgomery, John C.
Miller, William D.
Murray, John T.
Metz, C. H.
Milliken, Harry
Moody, Lawrie
Moore, Thomas Morrell
Marks, Marcus M.
Maas, Charles O.
Mack, Harry W.
March, James E., Sr.
March, Joseph V.
March, William McKinley
Marple, Wilbur B.
Maynard, Reuben Leslie
Mead, Robert G.
Miller, William F.
Minor, James A.
Mitchell, William
Moody, William J.
More, Taylor
Muelberger, Eric
Mulford, Robert
Melville, Henry
Maples, Edward T.
Murray, A. G.
Murray. A. G. (guest)
[64]
Members and their Guests
McConaughy, John
McCook, Gen. Anson G.
McCall, W. Johnstone
McDermott, E. H.
McConville, Arthur
McGee, Walter C.
McMillan, Emerson
McLellan, M. N.
McLellan, Hugh
McGay, Frank B.
McDonough, J. B.
McCoy, D. B.
McMillan, Samuel
MacGuire, C. J.
Macdonald, R. H.
MacRossie, Rev. Allan
Newhouse, Edgar L.
Nealley, C. H.
Ne Collins, J. E.
New York American
New York Associated Press
N. Y. City News Association
New York Times
New York Tribune
New York Press
Nicoll, Benjamin
Nixon, Charles R.
Nussbaum, Myer
Obermeyer, Theodore
Olcott, Hon. J. Van Vechten
Olcott, J. V. V. (guest)
Olcott, W. M. ,K.
O'Neil, Oscar
Owen, Carl M.
Patrick, Charles H.
Pearl, Abe
Peary, Rear-Admiral Robt. E,
Pederson, V. C.
Pinner, Henry W.
Porter, General Horace
Piercy, Henry Clay
Porter, Eugene H.
Prime, William O.
i/eugnet, Ramsey
Parker, Robert A.
Prince, Henry A.
Parsons, Herbert
Patterson, W. F.
Pope, C. A.
Patten, Gilbert
Porter, Dr. William H.
Porter, William C.
Pallister, Claude V.
Porter, Wm. H.
Plaut, Gustav
Rockfeller, Percy A.
Rosenberg, Ely
Runkel, Louis
Roberts, James S.
Reed, Louis F.
Runsheim, Joseph
Reid, G. W.
Ross, Rev. Dr.
Reid, Wallace
Runk, Charles A.
Rhodes, Bradford
Russell, Charles M.
Reed, F. A.
Rowe, Louis H.
Rubin, J. Robert
Richter, Theodore B.
Reynolds, Marc
Ryerson, E. J.
Rosenberg, K. Henry
Rose, Wm. H.
Ryerson, E. J.
Rodewald, W. M.
Starr, Charles P.
Stern, Hon. Louis
Stokes, Hon. Edward C.
Staats-Zeitung
Sheffield, James R.
[65]
The Republican Club
Shonts, Theodore P.
Sickels, John S.
Smith, Herbert W.
Smith, R. A. C.
Stafford, V. H.
Stewart, John W.
Stockton, Sanford D., Jr.
Sutro, Richard
Swart, Frank
Smith, Addison T.
Sloane, William J.
Sigsbee, Rear-Ad. Charles D.
Swartz, Harry R.
Sterne, Joseph J.
Smith, A. W.
Stalp, W. F.
Sweeney, R. C.
Stevens, S. W.
Short, Warren F.
Sleicher, John A.
Stern, Leopold
Stern, Leopold (guest)
Seligman, Paul N.
Stryker, Lloyd Paul
Spiegelberg, F.
Smoot, J. Samuel
Stewart, Judd
Sykes, H. E.
Stern, Melville A.
Strauss, Frank V.
Sternberger, Maurice M.
Snow, Elbridge G., Jr.
Snow, Elbridge G.
Snyder, J. Joseph
Sternau, Sigmund
Schwersee, B.
Seligman, Isaac N.
Sanford, Arthur H.
Tatnall, Henry
The Herald
The Sun
The World
Tobey, Harry G.
Thurber, Howard F.
Tully, William J.
Topakyan, H. H.
Towne, Paul R.
Tyner, C. L.
Thorburn, A. M.
Tufts, F. E.
Taft, Henry W.
Totty, Charles H.
Tanner, Frederick C.
Thomas, John Lloyd
Thornton, Thomas
Tannenbaum, Moses
Tanner, Wilson P.
Turner, Wm. L.
Tracy, Gen. Benjamin F.
Van Slochen, Herman
Vernon, F. Joseph
Vesper, Karl H.
Van Leer, Edward S.
Van Amringe, Augustus J.
Van Amringe, A. J. (guest)
Van Amringe, A. J. (guest)
Ver Planck, William G.
Vanamee, William
Van Amringe, Augustus Y.
Weeks, Frank B.
Weinman, George A.
Wentz, William F.
Wetmore, Edmund
Wheeler, Herbert L.
White, Martin J.
Wickersham, George W.
Wilcox, William R.
Williams, William
Wolff, Herman H
Wood, John H.
Woodbury, W. B.
Wright, H. J.
Whiteside, George W.
66]
Members and their Guests
Ward, Cabot
Woodward, Collin H.
Watterson, F. W.
Wilson, M. L.
Wollman, Henry
Webber, Joseph F.
Weinz, Theodore A. H.
Winter, Charles
Walker, W. A. G.
Werner, William E.
Wandling, James L.
Wolf, Alexander
Wheeler, William J.
Washburn, William T.
Williams, H. Evans
Wakeman, Wilbur F.
Wilder, F. E.
Williams, G. H.
Wadhams, William H.
Waterman, Frank D.
Waterman, F. S.
Welch, Winthrop A.
West, William T.
White, Chandler
Ward, F. F.
White, George B.
Winter, Clarence
Winterburn, Frederick W.
Yates, C. H.
Yawger, John F.
Yereance, James
Young, William
Zeller, Lorenz
[67
The Republican Club
LADIES
Guests of Members of the Club
Alphabetically Arranged
Allen, Mrs. William
Allison, Miss Frances M.
Allison, Mrs. Bedford
Belcher, Miss M. E.
Bent, Mrs. F. P.
Battershall, Mrs.
Bliven, Mrs. H. N.
Braun, Mrs. Marcus
Brown, Mrs. James D.
Brown, Mrs. J. Adams
Burnett, Miss Charlotte
Brooks, Mrs. Franklin
Cannon, Miss Grace
Carter, Mrs. William
Clark, Miss E. M.
Cobbett, Miss Florence A.
Conklin Mrs. William G.
Day, Mrs. Ralph A.
Dawson, Mrs. Allan
Dawson, Mrs. William T.
Drake, Miss Helen
Einstein, Mrs. Emanuel
Einstein, Miss
Feeney, Miss Susan A.
Friedman, Miss Minnie
Gilman, Mrs. Theodore P.
Gilman, Mrs. Theodore P., Jr.
Gerry, Mrs. James L.
Gallagher, Mrs George B.
Holmes, Mrs. Robert A.
Harberle, Miss Leonora L.
Hoffman, Mrs. Charles F.
Hoffman, Mrs. Wm. M. V.
Haynes Mrs. R. T.
Irwin, Mrs. John B.
Johnson, Mrs. Reginald M.
Jackson, Miss Lyllian Audrey
Jones, Mrs. Edwin A.
Kavanaugh, Mrs. George W.
Leaycraft, Mrs. J. Edgar
Lockwood, Miss Priscilla
Lauterbach, Miss Alice
Lansdowne, Miss
Milliken, Mrs. Harry
March, Miss Eugenie
March, Miss Olive
Mahoney, Miss Agnes
Mack, Mrs. Rita
Magee, Miss A. F.
[69
The Republican Club
Marks, Mrs. Marcus M.
McDonough Mrs. J. B.
Moody, Mrs. William J.
Newport, Miss Mary M.
Olcott, Mrs. J. V. V.
Patten, Mrs. Gilbert
Porter, Mrs. William H.
Porter, Mrs. William C.
Rosenberg, Mrs. K. Henry
Starkey, Mrs. E. G.
Steele, Miss Lila
Steele, Miss Helen
Steele, Miss Ruth
Slauson, Mrs. E. F.
Sloane, Mrs. William J.
Short, Mrs. Warren F.
Slack, Miss Marguerite
Schwersee, Mrs. B.
Spingarn Mrs.
Talcott, Miss Grace
Tanner, Mrs. Wilson P.
Weir, Miss C. M.
Wandling, Mrs. James L.
Wilke, Mrs. J. W.
Wilke, Miss
Wolf, Mrs. Alexander
Wheeler, Mrs. William J.
[70]
M
enu
HUITRES DE SMITH ISLAND
POTAGE WINDSOR A L'ANGLAISE
RADIS OLIVES CELERI AMANDES
MEDAILLON DE BASS, SAUCE D'ECREVETTES
POMMES DE TERRE A LA PARISIENNE
COQUILLE DE RIS DE VEAU ET CHAMPIGNONS FRAIS
MIGNON DE FILET DE BOEUF, SAUCE COLBERT
POMMES DE TERRE CHATEAU HARICOTS VERTS SAUTES
SORBET DE FANTAISIE
POITRINE DE PINTADE ROTIE EN CASSEROLE
SALADE WALDORF AUX PIMENTS DOUX
RUCHE DE MIEL GLACEE
GATEAUX ASSORTIS
CAFE
APOLLINARIS
PALL MALL CIGARETTES
PARTAGASl
^CIGARS
LA MEGA J
G. H. MUMM & CO. EXTRA DRY
G. H. MUMM & CO. CORDON ROUGE
SANDERSON'S MOUNTAIN DEW WHISKEY
A LA CARTE
[71]
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